However, I recently found out that Partage rotates their food offerings regularly, and their tasting menu is completely overhauled once a month (or even more frequently in the case of special events). This is perfect for me, as I have been really enjoying tasting menus lately, and I have been going out of my way to search for novel culinary experiences. With that new knowledge about Partage’s cadence in mind, I promptly booked a reservation last week on September 30, just in time for the final day of the September 2026 tasting menu before they switch over to their October 2026 one.

While I was getting settled in, I was given an amuse-bouche. In the scramble of asking about the three different tiers of tasting menus, discussing Le Club and whether it has any useful benefits for people who don’t drink alcohol (it doesn’t), and selecting a non-alcoholic beverage from the drink menu, I actually forgot what was inside this opening bite. I do remember that it tasted good, though.

For my beverage, I ordered a drink off their non-alcoholic menu—their Passion Lavender, made from house lavender syrup, lemon, raspberry, passion fruit, and cranberry. It was a solid drink, but to me, it sort of tasted generically fruity and didn’t offer anything unique or special.

I asked the bartender about their selection of non-alcoholic beverages and whether those also rotate with the same frequency as the tasting menu. He said that they originally started with six non-alcoholic drinks, but everyone just ordered three out of those six drinks over and over again, so they narrowed the scope of their non-alcoholic beverage menu. He said that those three drinks ended up becoming staples, and they don’t really swap them out.

Partage has three different levels of tasting menus: a five-course tasting menu for US$120.00, a seven-course tasting menu for US$150.00, and a signature nine-course tasting menu for US$198.00 (and of course, the pricing is as of the day I dined; considering how much they change the contents of the menu, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pricing sometimes got tweaked as well). For my very first dinner with Partage, I opted for the nine-course signature tasting menu.

The first course was a crab trio. First was some crab meat served on top of a puffed rice and furikake crispy chip, alongside some Hokkaido-style triple-milk ice cream. Inside the cup was crab bisque flan with live Dungeness crab meat topped with croissant foam. The third of the trio was buttery king crab wrapped in crispy kadaifi.

I was confused when the server said that one of the items contained ice cream and thought he might have just meant that it was a dollop of extra creamy thick sauce, but when I bit into it, I confirmed that it was definitely actually ice cream. With that being said, the ice cream worked really well with the crab and didn’t taste like I was starting my meal with dessert.

The flan was very flavorful, and the amount of crab inside was quite generous.

For the king crab wrapped in crispy kadaifi, I tried to eat this in two bites, but when I tried to bite it in half, the kadaifi crumbled and started flying everywhere, so in panic, I just put the entire thing in my mouth. The kadaifi was extremely crispy, yet still had a sense of lightness to it such that it wasn’t crispy to the point of being sharp and cutting my mouth. The kadaifi didn’t really have any greasiness to it that you’d expect from something fried to this level of crisp, which is good, because that allowed the butter from the crab to control the primary fatty element of the flavor profile.

The second course was Scotch egg stuffed with corn purée, served atop farro risotto, wild mushrooms, and baby corn, sauced with chicken jus.

I wish I had taken a picture of this after I sliced into the egg, because it was very amusing seeing the egg cut open and seeing the corn purée ooze out as if it was a thicker and lighter-colored runny yolk. Overall, this was quite a bit too salty for me, but if I set that part aside, then I still enjoyed the dish.

The third and final appetizer course was lamb Wellington with olive tapenade, red bell pepper, baba ghanoush, and lamb Choron sauce.

As you can most likely see from the photograph, the ratio of puff pastry to meat was extremely high compared to what you’d expect from a beef Wellington. I am not sure if everyone would agree with me, but I personally thought this was fantastic. Rather than just going for a lamb variant of beef Wellington, this tasted like it was a fully reimagined bakery dish where both the pastry and the meat share the spotlight. On top of that, because lamb generally has much more intensity of flavor than beef, I think this worked out very well.

The only thing that I did not prefer about it was how salty the sauce was, though that was obviously fixed by just using less of it. For someone who doesn’t love pastries as much as I do, using more of the sauce will probably lean the dish a bit away from the pastry realm and deeper into the Wellington territory.

The fourth course was the foie gras signature dish. Foie gras always exists in some form in the signature tasting menu, but they change how they prepare it each month. This month, it was seared foie gras with reduced Muscat, caramelized grapes, and baby grapes. It also came with a crispy roll wrapped with grape leaf and topped with artichoke. Both were sauced with duck jus.

I like when dishes take an item and prepare it in multiple different ways to make a certain dish. A very common example of this is how some sushi restaurants will serve salmon bowls atop sushi rice and serve the salmon three different ways: dorsal loin sashimi, belly sashimi, and roe. This foie gras dish basically did that, but with a bunch of different kinds of grapes.

The grapes and artichoke helped balance the fattiness of the foie gras. I pretty much always prefer foie gras to be served with a generous amount of fruits and/or vegetables; I think this dish met the bare minimum of that threshold such that it tasted great, but it still maintained as much of the powerful, rich, savory kick as possible.

Course number five was the seafood dish. This month, it was premium white fish and clam chowder with celery, fennel, potato siphon, bacon, and crispy tuile.

I mentioned this at the beginning of the blog post, but I had this meal last week on the final day of September, so it’s been a little while since I ate this. In the time that has passed, I forgot what I thought about this dish. In every situation where that happens, it always means that the dish was decent, because I pretty much never forget a dish if it is remarkably good or remarkably bad. Thus, I am guessing that this was an all-around solid white fish dish, and I most likely enjoyed it, but there was nothing special about it that would prompt me to remember it in detail.

Next up was the signature course. Apparently this is the most popular dish in the entire tasting menu, and they allegedly attempted to swap this out in the past, but this was such a fan favorite that people kept asking for it back. This is the one course that stays consistent month-to-month, and is the reason a lot of regulars will get the nine-course signature tasting menu instead of the seven-course or five-course versions.

The signature course is wagyu oxtail croque-monsieur.

Believe it or not, this was my least favorite dish of the tasting menu. The first few bites were brain-bustingly delicious, but by the time I finished two of the seven layers, it was already getting very cloying. The fat content in the wagyu oxtail was insane, and although it’s amazing in smaller portions, the amount in this croque-monsieur was excessive in my opinion. I did end up finishing the entire thing, but by the time I was done, I was almost relieved that it was over.

Honestly, this actually works out perfectly well. I’m glad I was able to enjoy this signature dish one time. However, it’s not something that I would get repeatedly. This means that for future visits to Partage, rather than ordering the nine-course signature menu, I can get the seven-course menu and then supplement a foie gras add-on. That way, I can get the eight dishes that rotate each month, while saving a bit of money passing on the ninth dish, and also make my heart happier by eating less saturated fat.

Course seven was the meat course. This month, it was Black Opal wagyu beef tenderloin on one half of the plate, and a celery risotto with glazed and caramelized beef cheek bonbon on the other half. Both were sauced with some parsley-garlic coulis and beef demi-glace.

I think the tenderloin was around AUS-MEAT BMS 6-7, rather than BMS 8-9+. This meant that the marbling was top-tier, but not the highest tier. I actually prefer this over BMS 9+ (or A5 on the Japanese scale) because you can taste more of the beefiness and you can have a larger portion of the meat without feeling overwhelmed. I was also glad that this tenderloin had lower fat content after having the wagyu oxtail croque-monsieur.

This is what the inside of the celery risotto looked like. The fact that it was celery atop the beef cheek was very amusing, but the combination actually worked quite well. Even the texture matched up almost perfectly to the rice in slow-cooked risotto, so calling it celery risotto was definitely justified.

Next up was the cheese course for course number eight. This was Brillat-Savarin cheese served alongside candied baby beets and beet bread, topped with salted peanuts and drizzled with raspberry vinaigrette.

This is the best cheese I’ve ever had in my entire life.

I am usually not a fan of cheese because I think it tastes like mold, and I tend to pick up on the moldy flavor profile much more easily than other people. However, this cheese did not taste at all like any other cheese I’ve ever had. This cheese was buttery, creamy, milky, and fresh. In fact, I’d say that this Brillat-Savarin is the best dairy product I’ve ever had in general.

I spread generous portions of it on the beet bread and took bites of the candied baby beets to go along with it. That, combined with the greens and the peanuts, and it basically hit every single metric for every single possible thing you could ask for to go along with a world-class cheese dish.

I literally think I could’ve eaten three more plates of this and still wanted more.

To conclude the meal, there were two desserts. I’m not sure if the course list is entirely accurate here just based on what the dessert looked like, but this apparently had caramelized pear, pear gel, oatmeal, and cocoa crumble. Realistically, this tasted like an elevated version of a s’more.

The second dessert was a vanilla rice pudding mousse. I remember the server introducing this with the term Snickers for some reason; it didn’t really remind me of Snickers at all, but I thought this was better than the chocolate bar. It was like a light chocolate brownie, and it was quite sweet, but it wasn’t the sickly or cloying kind of sweet; instead, this was a much brighter sweetness that you usually get from crystallized sugar.

Along with the check, I was brought some petits fours to enjoy at the end of my meal. The left bite was blueberry meringue, and the right bite was a miniature tart with a custardy and nutty flavor profile.

Because I was dining alone, I took a seat at the bar so I wouldn’t be occupying a full table that could be used by a larger party. Sometimes I read the news on my phone during the downtime between dishes, but occasionally, the bartender would have some free time between making drinks to come chat for a bit at a time.

This is what the dining area looks like. I had the first reservation slot of the evening at 5:30 PM, which is right as they opened, so that’s why it looks so empty. The bartender mentioned that they plan on changing their business hours and opening half an hour earlier at 5:00 PM starting from October.

Next door to Partage is Le Club by Partage, and in between the two dining areas, there is an area where they store and sell wine. I was several minutes early for my 5:30 PM reservation and Partage hadn’t opened yet, so the hostess asked me to hold tight for a few more minutes until she could confirm that the staff was ready to start service. In the meantime, I browsed the wines set out for display (though I had no idea what anything was, considering that I do not drink alcohol).

Signature tasting menu	$ 198.00
Passion Lavender	$  12.00
Sales tax (8.375%)	$  17.59
Gratuity	$  40.00
Total	$ 267.59

The table to the right shows how much I paid.

I thought that the meal was a little bit pricey, especially considering that it didn’t have any of the iconic expensive-to-procure items (such as caviar, truffles, Japanese A5 wagyu, lobster, and other rare or supply-constrained seafood) that tend to drive up the price of some other tasting menus to around US$200.00+ due to the cost of goods being passed along to the diner. On top of that, Partage is in Chinatown out in the suburbs, and it doesn’t qualify for the expected Las Vegas Strip upcharge from high rent and high roller capitalization.

With that being said, I think it was still within reason, primarily if you account for the relatively high intricacies and complexities behind each of the dishes. I guess the fish was somewhat straightforward, but everything else looked like it involved high-effort, time-consuming preparation processes. Partage is big on wine, and they seem to have a very successful wine club, so my guess is that their primary target audience consists of older wine enthusiasts who have more spending power and don’t mind not milking maximum value per dollar on food, presumably due to being desensitized by the generally high price of alcohol.

Based on my experience during the aforementioned dinner, I am definitely going back again this month (in October) for the new menu rotation. With a few minor adjustments and optimizations to my order (specifically, getting an eight-course menu instead of the full signature one, and sticking with just house water instead of also getting a decent-but-not-amazing non-alcoholic cocktail), I think the price point will be chipped down enough that it won’t be bothersome to me. I want to support chefs who prioritize exploration, innovation, experimentation, and seasonality, and I think becoming a regular at Partage would be a great way to do that.

I’m always looking for unique, creative, innovative, and limited-edition dining opportunities. While browsing for options near me, I came across the Caesars Palace 60th Anniversary Teppan Experience at Nobu on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. This was great news because, not only would I be able to try a special teppanyaki dining experience that was concluding at the end of September (I had this meal approximately one week ago), but I also remembered off the top of my head that Nobu was a qualifying restaurant for the OpenTable credit.

After I found it, I promptly booked the reservation for the same day, and then showed up at 5 PM for the first seating. I finished my dinner, paid for my meal, then checked my Chase app to confirm that the charge had gone through properly as “Nobu” instead of just a generic “Caesars Palace food and beverage” so Chase would know to award me the credit. Somewhere along this process, I found out that, about three months ago, Chase removed Nobu from the eligible OpenTable credit restaurants. And of course, they didn’t release a proper press release about it; out of all places they could’ve picked, they announced it on reddit.

It is entirely my fault. There was an absence of the Chase Sapphire Reserve logo on the OpenTable booking page for Nobu, but it didn’t register in my head that it was gone when I opened it to make the booking. Chase also gave a two-month grace period after they removed Nobu (in addition to a bunch of other restaurants), and my dinner fell outside of even that grace period. And of course, Chase and OpenTable reserve the right to change qualifying restaurants at any point, and it is up to me to check for participating status at the time of booking.

Regardless, it is obviously disappointing going into a meal expecting a US$150.00 discount and then finding out that you have to pay full price. Luckily for me, I dine at restaurants a lot, so it won’t be an issue for me to go to another restaurant—this time, one that is actually on the list of participating restaurants—to spend the credit that I wasn’t able to use at Nobu.

 
With all that being said, I’m still glad I got the opportunity to try this special tasting menu. Was it a high-value experience for the money? No, not really, as you will see later on. But was it still a good experience? Yes.

What made the experience extra good was the fact that apparently I was the only one who booked a reservation for that particular time slot on that particular day. When I showed up at the restaurant, I was a little bit early and they hadn’t opened yet, so I waited about ten minutes in the lobby; once they were ready, the hostess walked me to the teppan table, and I noticed that only one of the spots was set with a linen napkin and chopsticks. When I pointed with a confused look and asked if I was the only one, she said “yes.”

Sadly, the positioning of the teppan grill was very unfortunate. Because Nobu is inside Caesars Palace, it is directly connected to the hotel. The far back walls of Nobu are not solid, and instead have diamond-shaped spaces that show a view out into the hall. Because of the casino, cigarette smoking is legal inside Caesars Palace. This meant that I would occasionally get repulsive waves of cigarette smoke odor coming into the restaurant, and being so close to the back wall, my table was the first one hit. This alone is enough for me to never return to Nobu for another teppan meal again.

The meal started with a collection of sashimi: kanpachi jalapeño, ama ebi, and salmon nashi pear with sliced truffle.

The greater amberjack was solid, but there was nothing particularly special about it. The sweet shrimp was incredibly delicious, but the shrimp head that came with it was fairly average. The salmon was my favorite bite; the pear sauce and truffle to go along with the salmon made for an amazing combination.

Whenever I go to a restaurant, I like to browse their non-alcoholic mocktail menu to see if there’s anything interesting that I might want to try. At Nobu, the drink that stuck out to me was their Shiso Peachy, made from white peach Calpico, aloe juice, simple syrup, lemon, and Fever-Tree soda, topped with a shiso leaf.

This actually ended up being one of the best drinks I’ve ever had. It was a very unique flavor profile that I’ve never had before. It had a smooth and subtle fruitiness to it that was sweet, but not too sweet. I think shiso leaves can be tricky to use because their flavor can very easily pierce through and overwhelm other flavors, but the fact that this leaf was just gently placed on top made it so that it only had a gentle contribution to the overall flavor profile to the extent that it matched, but did not overpower, the rest of the drink.

Next up was the nigiri. The three pieces included toro with miso and caviar, Japanese snapper with shiso and lemon, and snow crab tiradito. This was also accompanied by atsuyaki tamago.

All of this was pretty good, but I particularly liked the snow crab nigiri. The crunchy garnish on top gave it a fun texture and added a very slight kick of mild spice.

After the first two courses, the chef came out and prepared the teppan grill.

He seemed to have no reaction whatsoever to the fact that I was the only one dining that round. I asked him how often this happens, and he said that it has actually been occurring a lot more frequently lately. I guess the fact that I showed up on a weekday and early on in the evening (as opposed to the weekend during the late evening dinner rush) also contributed to it as well.

After doing a little juggling show with his cooking tools to show his agility, the chef started cooking my meal.

First off the grill was Hokkaido scallop with charred negi goma, sesame chili oil, and shiitake mushrooms.

The quality of the scallop was great, and the accompanying sauce was fantastic. I often don’t prefer over-garnished scallop because it’s easy to overpower the milder flavor of scallop. However, this sauce had the perfect intensity such that it got right up to the limit of flavor while just barely not overwhelming the scallop. The mushrooms also worked great with this, as they were charred and almost crispy on the outside, while being soft and tender on the inside.

Next up was Glacier 51 Chilean sea bass with yuzu kosho chimichurri and broccolini.

This was an interesting take on chimichurri. I often see chimichurri paired with steak and other red meats, but this was infused with a more citrus-heavy twist, and it complemented the fish well. It had an element of spiciness to it, but it was more of a “throbbing” kind of satisfying spicy aftertaste, rather than it being a front-loaded spiciness that is often associated with spicy foods.

While I was enjoying the sea bass, the chef started working on my next dish.

For the next course, the chef cooked some lobster tail and served it atop some rocoto sweet chili garlic miso and micro arugula.

I like lobster, so I appreciated this dish. I suspect that the sauce here was quite special, but I think the highly innovative and unique nature of the sauces of the previous two dishes made it so that, in comparison, this rocoto sweet chili garlic miso didn’t stand out as much as it otherwise would have had I eaten this as a separate entrée.

With back-to-back-to-back seafood dishes done, it was time for some beef.

The chef’s next plate was Miyazaki A5 wagyu drizzled with soy mirin reduction served with pickled daikon and a dollop of karashi.

This was delicious wagyu beef and matched the quality I would expect from a cut graded A5. However, the thing that stood out most to me about this was actually the spicy mustard. Wagyu is often served with flaky salt and pepper so that the beef flavor is enhanced, but there is nothing diluting or altering the flavor profile. Even though I’ve eaten quite a lot of A5 wagyu at this point in my life, I think this is actually the first time that I ever had it served with karashi.

For my first bite, I accidentally put way too much of it on the beef, so all I ended up tasting was the spicy mustard. However, for subsequent bites, I used the spicy mustard far more conservatively, and with a small dot of it on the wagyu, it made it much better. The best way for me to describe it was as if the wagyu was served with a more unique variant of wasabi.

While I was enjoying the wagyu, the chef started preparing a bunch of different ingredients for my final savory course before dessert.

After I finished all the wagyu, a waiter came over to take away my empty plate and drop off a bowl of miso soup.

I sipped the soup to go along with my bowl of Nobu fried rice, made from lobster, wagyu, scallop, black garlic, and crispy allium.

Up until this point, I was noticing how small the portion size of each dish was, and the limited number of overall courses offered in the tasting menu. Although this fried rice didn’t single-handedly “fix” the problem, the fact that the chef prepared a large, heaping bowl of rice did definitely help lift me out of continued hunger and into the “fine” territory.

For his final act of the meal, the chef seared a crust on some banana slices and then lit them ablaze to flambé them.

When I saw him do that, I told him an abridged version of the story of my friend’s botched pineapple rum flambé upside-down cake at STRIPSTEAK and let him know that I’m glad he knows how to properly use the technique. He seemed to have found the anecdote quite amusing and funny.

The bananas were brought back to the kitchen, where the pastry chefs finished preparing the dessert. This is the final product that came out: banana kinako with nougatine, walnut, and Maldon salt, served with a scoop of milk gelato. According to the description on the menu, this is inspired by Bananas Foster.

This was great. It was fun combining all the individual elements into cohesive bites, and I particularly enjoyed the nuttiness and how it complemented the baseline banana flavor.

This is a picture of the front of the restaurant near the hostess’ podium.

I didn’t have an opportunity to capture any other photos inside Nobu because of how far back I was seated. The teppan grill tables are tucked away in a little alcove, so it’s fantastic for privacy, but not the best if you want to take pictures. The restaurant also filled up pretty quickly after I arrived, so I didn’t want to go for a walk taking pictures when a ton of diners were already getting settled in for their meals.

Instead, here is a photo of the statues and fountain near the hotel registration desk at Caesars Palace. I passed through here on my way out of the building after finishing dinner.

Teppan Menu	$ 266.00
Shiso Peachy	$  15.00
Sales tax (8.375%)	$  23.53
Gratuity	$  50.00
Total	$ 354.53

The table to the right shows how much I paid.

As I mentioned before, I enjoyed the meal and I enjoyed the experience. However, I think this price is quite steep for what you get.

Nobu is a very reputable brand. After this dinner, I do think that Nobu is deserving of praise and acclaim. However, with that being said, I think Nobu is overrated. I think the way that people perceive Nobu as some kind of ultra high-end luxury brand is a bit overblown for what you actually get. Again, to be clear, the food was fantastic. However, you can also get food of comparably high quality at other high-end, authentic Japanese restaurants for substantially less money and larger portion sizes.

Obviously, restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip charge quite a bit more than regular restaurants out in the suburbs, or compared to restaurants in other cities that aren’t designed to attract high rollers. However, even with that in mind, I think the US$266 price point is still too high. In my opinion, I think the “Nobu mark-up” here is somewhere around the US$60-70 range, i.e., if this exact experience did not have the Nobu name attached to it and was instead given to you at some generic “Mr. & Mrs. Lee’s Teppanyaki” restaurant on the Strip, it would probably be priced closer to a flat US$200.

So, my final verdict of whether or not I would recommend it? It depends. If you’re taking a gold digger out on a date, or if you yourself are a gold digger and want to milk good value from your date, and you care about the prestige of dining at Nobu, then I think this is a great place not only to stroke your ego, but also to actually eat very good food. However, if you’re just a normal person and you want to dine at a restaurant that will give you more bang for your buck, then I think it makes sense to pass on Nobu (at least the one at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip).

I don’t have my laptop with me at the moment, but I found some paper and a pen with a graphic of a cat on it. I am currently at an event, but I still have a few hours to spare. I’ve generally been good at avoiding social media, but it’s gotten worse lately because I followed a bunch of musicians lately, and now the algorithm is feeding me very captivating clips from their concerts. To avoid staring at my phone for the next few hours, I decided to write.

In my head, it’s already off to a tragic start. I pride myself in using precise language with a broad vocabulary, but I feel like I’ve already been redundant and suboptimal in my word choice. I earned a higher education degree in the early 2010s, so I’m not new to handwriting. It’s just that I generally don’t have the first draft of a handwritten note scanned and uploaded online for the public to see, like I plan on doing with this. And yes, I actually write like this, and this is actually really my normal handwriting style. Don’t worry, it will gradually get sloppier and more human soon once my hand starts cramping in a few pages.

People often come to me for advice. My self perception of my own wisdom seems to be significantly less than how others see me. When people ask me questions, my most frequent responses are “I don’t know,” “I’m not sure,” and “I’m not the best person to ask this.” However, over time, I realized that my willingness to disclose my gaps in knowledge is having the opposite of the intended effect, and is making people come to me even more. When I decline to comment on a matter because I feel too unqualified to do so, many people follow up by asking if I can give some general advice instead. More specifically, they ask for advice about how a young person can get to where I am today.

The advice I usually give in that situation is, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” No matter how much time you spend researching, studying, and preparing for something, you cannot prepare for something that you don’t even know you have to prepare for because you don’t know that it even exists. Unknown variables like this exist everywhere, and it is important that your confidence never turns into blindness or arrogance. This is still advice I regularly give, especially to younger people who seem to have gotten their initial taste of success already and may be prone to risk-taking.

However, as I slowly get older, one additional piece of advice has stuck in my head due to my increasing age. I am turning 35 years old in under 4 months, which graduates me from the 25-34 “early career” category and puts me in the 35-44 “established career” category. According to the demographic information provided to me by social media platforms, over half my followers fall within the 25-34 age group. This means that I am older than most of the people who interact with me online. If that does indeed apply to you, then my advice for you is:

You are richer than me.

I don’t envy people with money; I envy people with time. I don’t admire people with money; I admire people who extracted maximum value from their time. Time is the most valuable currency and life’s most important resource. I am almost never regretful of anything, but when I do end up regretting something, it involves wasting or misusing my time. I remember reading somewhere that the average life expectancy of a Korean man is 80 years, 70 of which is lived healthy and without disability or illness. It is quite jarring to me that I am about half dead already.

An increasing number of things in the world are fighting for your time and attention. Guard it like your life depends on it, because it does. Before giving your time to someone or something, think about whether it’s worth it. Ask yourself if it will bring you closer to the goals you want to achieve with your life. This doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have fun. Taking time off to have fun is an important part of boosting morale and productivity. But, think deeply—is what you’re doing actually fun, or are you just going through the motions of having fun without actually having fun?

I get worried about people who live a majority of their lives online. The internet is a huge time sink. Algorithms are designed to make you forget how valuable your time is and trick you into wasting it on things that don’t matter.  Online content portrays itself as fun—and it sometimes is—but it is often just a disguise. Having fun is supposed to recharge you and put you in the right mindset to continue pursuing your goals. But, a lot of people feel exhausted or stressed after consuming social media content. Think carefully about whether it is truly deserving of your most important resource.

Watch out, because time leaks. You can’t pause it in between tasks, or when you get distracted for just a few minutes at a time while you check your phone several times a day. People who take control over these leaks and consolidate it into meaningful usage can launch much further ahead towards their goals. It usually takes a couple thousand hours to reach professional competency at something. Someone who recaptures two hours of misdirected time can accumulate it daily for under three years and have it be enough to be qualified to do an entire new job.

A lot of people are surprised when they find out how much I pack into a single day’s worth of time, and they get even more surprised when I say I look at more successful people and feel like I’m still not doing enough with my time. But the older I get, the more urgent it feels that I not only spend my remaining time wisely, but also continue refining my life goals so that my time can be put towards something more important in general.

People like to say that there’s plenty of time, either to decide what to do or to get back on track. I know being anxious or stressed about wasting time can be counterproductive, because then some people just fixate on and panic about all the time being wasted. However, I think at least a little bit of pressure is healthy for most people. So, I’ll be that guy and say it: time is running out.

However, no matter how amazing Bazaar Meat was, there is still one minor problem for me: their dishes are heavy on red meat. Unfortunately, I still need to be heart-health conscious and minimize the amount of saturated fat I eat; although my cholesterol levels have become far more manageable now, I’m still at high risk for hereditary heart conditions. Thus, I like to indulge in red meats sparingly, and where possible, I shift my diet towards focusing more on fish, poultry, and vegetables.

There is some great news though. Bazaar Meat is known for their delicious and high-quality steaks that have incredible marbling and impeccable preparation, but they also have a sister restaurant that upholds the same reputation but focuses on seafood instead. That obviously is a great match for me, so late last week, I dined at Bazaar Mar by José Andrés, located inside The Shops at Crystals on the Las Vegas Strip.

Bazaar Mar also had two different tasting menus: The Bazaar Mar Experience for US$175.00 per person, with an option to add a discovery wine pairing for a supplemental US$150.00 per person; and José’s Creative Experience for US$235.00 per person, with an option to add the ultimate wine pairing for a supplemental US$220.00 per person. For this meal, I decided to try out The Bazaar Mar Experience, with an intent to come back and try José’s Creative Experience on a later day if I have a good experience.

I’m glad I don’t drink alcohol, because it’s wild to me that some sips of wine to go along with your meal can end up being almost just as expensive as the entire tasting menu itself. Instead, I opted to get two non-alcoholic beverages. One of them was given to me complimentary because Bazaar Mar is running a special promotion right now where locals get one free drink with a purchase (though I’m not sure whether any Nevada ID would qualify, or if the ID has to have an address listed that is within the Las Vegas Valley). The second one is one I selected and paid for.

 
The first course, called “a bite or two to welcome you,” came with three items. The first was oyster ceviche with leche de tigre and corn nuts.

I love the flavor of oyster so I usually don’t add anything to it that could potentially diminish the strength of the flavor of the oyster. If a restaurant serves oysters with a set of sauces, I usually don’t use any of the sauces and end up eating the oysters plain (or with a very small amount of lemon juice) because I like oysters that much. Sometimes, if there is some sea salt available and the oysters are extra good, I will salt the oysters to further enhance the flavor of them.

With that in mind, I think it’s reasonable to assume that I don’t like oysters that have a lot of preparation behind them. However, this oyster ceviche was actually quite good. The sauce added a bit of sourness to the overall flavor profile, but the level of sourness stopped at the perfect level such that it didn’t interfere with the taste of the oyster. I like nutty flavors, so the corn nuts not only added a different angle to the flavor profile, but also added a fun textural contrast to the bite.

Along with the appetizers, my complimentary drink came out: the Emerald Coin, made with Seedlip Grove 42 non-alcoholic spirit, honeydew, lemongrass, lime, and celery. If I wasn’t a local, this would’ve cost US$16.00.

This is a flavor profile that I don’t have often, so I enjoyed the unique aspect of it. It was a nice, balanced mixture of sweet fruitiness and earthy vegetable…ness. At first, I thought the portion size was a bit small, but I think the shape of the glass was deceptive; I sipped this throughout my first few courses, and it was enough to last me past when my second drink came out.

The next bite was José’s Taco with jamón Ibérico de bellota, Ossetra caviar, nori, and gold leaf.

I’m usually not the biggest fan of jamón Ibérico because the flavor can be a bit basic and overpowering, but this jamón was great. It was relatively mild, yet still had a rich, meaty flavor. The seaweed was relatively mild as well, which allowed the taste of the caviar to come through prominently.

The third bite was a river trout cone made from Smoke in Chimneys trout shaped into a flower, with preserved Meyer lemon and dill.

The presentation was nice, but even if it wasn’t formed into the shape of a flower, it would’ve still been fantastic. The trout had a strong but very clean and crisp fish flavor. When the server brought this out, she recommended that it be eaten in two bites at once, i.e., bite the top off, then put the rest in your mouth and chew together. The sauce at the bottom of the cone was very complementary to the fish, so I’m glad she pointed that out.

The next course was called “a trip around the world, The Bazaar world.” This started with monkfish ssam containing fried monkfish atop gem lettuce, sauced with black garlic romesco and aioli, and topped with lemon foam.

The fried monkfish tasted very clean. It felt like it was grilled and seared monkfish, but with a light and refreshing layer of breading on it, and injected with all the positives of the fried flavoring without any of the greasiness. I couldn’t really pinpoint the specific flavors of the sauces, which I found to be a good thing; they meshed well with the fish flavor and didn’t overwhelm it at all.

Next was kueh pai ti, described on the course list as Singapore’s favorite street food. Inside, it contained ama ebi shrimp, peanuts, and chili sauce.

This was my favorite bite of the dinner. It was an incredible explosion of flavor containing basically all of my favorite elements—seafood, nuttiness, and spiciness. I feel like I literally could’ve had ten more of these and still wanted more.

Afterwards came Hokkaido sea scallop crudo with tomatillo and seeds aguachile, green grapes, and jalapeño-cucumber oil.

This was my second favorite dish of the night. The quality of the scallop was incredible. Scallops are usually on the milder side with flavor profile, but these tasted quite strong. The sweetness of the grapes worked really well with the scallop. The oil was absolutely packed with flavor, and it seems like they dried the other ingredients well enough that the oil really stuck to everything and enhanced every bite. The oil was so delicious that I grabbed a spoon and literally scooped and drank it like soup after I was done with the solids.

In preparation for the next course, my second drink came out: Mediterranean milk punch made from lemon, lavender, mint, green cardamom, orange blossom, and grenadine. The liquid itself was clarified from Greek yogurt and milk. This was not included in the tasting menu and cost an extra US$18.00.

If I’m paying extra for a drink at a restaurant, I want to make sure that it’s something I can’t get at a grocery store somewhere. This Mediterranean milk punch far exceeded my expectations in that regard, because it was unlike anything I had ever tasted before. It had a very subtle and smooth underlying dairy base, but the top notes were a dynamic mixture of a lot of fun, fruity flavors.

The third course was called “from ocean depths to garden heights.” This started with their Po Boy José! made with fried baby squid and aioli packed inside a steamed brioche bun, served with a pepper to nibble on on the side.

I think people underestimate how difficult it can be to make the perfect sandwich. I think our expectations of sandwiches are reasonably pretty low, and if it just generally tastes like meat, vegetables, and bread, then most people are satisfied. However, if you really consider the flavor profile of a sandwich, you will often realize that it is very easy to get a proper balance of flavors of all the different elements of the sandwich.

This po boy nailed the balance perfectly. Not only was the squid nice and flavorful, but the way it was fried made it so you could detect the fried flavor, but it was still a seafood-forward flavor profile overall. I think the bread was intentionally slightly underseasoned, which ended up being great because it allowed it to supplement the squid flavor rather than making the sandwich too bready. Even the pepper was perfect—it was a relatively mild pepper, but it still had enough sourness to it to help cut through the creaminess of the sauce.

Next up was a tomato salad made with heirloom tomatoes inside ginger lime syrup and topped with citrus soy glaze.

I think these might have been some of the best tomatoes I’ve ever had in my entire life. The tomatoes themselves were high quality and had a natural sweetness with no sourness. However, the sauce was world-class. I think the soy glaze had a very similar flavor profile to soy sauce, but without any of the excessive saltiness, so it tasted like these tomatoes were marinated in and then brushed with a thickened version of just the flavor of soy sauce, with no salt, and diluted perfectly to the point where its intensity matched the intensity of the tomatoes exactly.

As a side note, this was a comically large portion size of tomatoes, and I think it is sized for two people to share. That was obviously no problem, though; these were delicious enough that I happily ate the entire thing.

And finally, the last dish before the main entrées was a Maine lobster croquette with lobster and shrimp fritters, served with a side of saffron aioli.

This was decent, but probably the most underwhelming dish of the tasting menu. Compared to the other dishes tasting extra clean, crisp, refreshing, and well-balanced, this croquette was far more “normal” and on the heavier side.

It was now time for course number four: “where the sea meets the land.”

At the beginning of my meal, my waitress asked which dish I wanted for the main course, with my options being chicken or salmon. Of course, I picked the salmon. However, after reviewing the course list again, I realized that I was supposed to get both the main entrées, rather than needing to pick just one. The next time she came around, I brought it up and asked her about it. She said that the tasting menu only comes with both if you are dining as a group of two, and solo diners only get to pick one or the other.

I asked her if it was possible for me to get half portions of each. She said she would go to the back and ask the chef; after several minutes, she returned to my table and said that the chef said they’re willing to let me have both, and that wouldn’t be a problem.

The first entrée was pollo al ajillo made with Josper-roasted chicken and ajillo sauce.

When this came out, I was confused. This was such a large portion of chicken that I suspected they might not have given me a half-portion of it like I had mentioned to the waitress. Subsequently, I was concerned that, not only did they not give me half-portions of both, but they ended up just giving me a full portion of chicken and skipping the salmon.

I think I had a very unlucky first bite of this chicken, because the edge piece of the pre-cut section was quite dry. However, that first bite was definitely a fluke. When I ate more of the chicken, the next part was immediately far more tender and delicious. This ended up being a bit too salty for my preference, though I’m not sure if the saltiness came from the chicken brine or the sauce.

Shortly afterwards, to my surprise, the salmon came out too—this was Ōra King salmon grilled over wood fire and served with salmon roe atop Meyer lemon sauce.

Now I was even more confused, because this also seemed like a full portion of salmon. When I had a chance, I asked my waitress whether the kitchen forgot that I was alone and inadvertently gave me full portions instead of half portions. She then responded that the kitchen doesn’t actually do half portions of anything, so they made me full portions of both. I thanked them and offered to pay an upcharge for receiving a second full-size main entrée for free, but she said it was fine and that the kitchen said it was all good.

This is the best salmon I’ve ever had in my entire life. It was cooked pretty rare, so I was able to get both the raw salmon and cooked salmon flavor combined in each bite. The salmon in general was absolutely packed with flavor. The fish tasted almost as if it was denser, as in, there was more salmon flesh and fat packed into each cubic centimeter. The skin was also incredible and added a fun crisp to each bite. To top it all off, chewing into the salmon roe coated my tongue in its oozy goodness so I had a rich flavor to keep my tongue occupied in between bites.

The side dish to go along with the chicken and salmon was Josper-roasted carrots with olive oil labneh yogurt, carrot gastrique, and sumac.

The carrots were cooked to perfection. They were both soft and firm at the same time, and had a rich broiled texture on the inside with a more charred exterior. For lack of a better way to describe it, there was also a facet of the carrots that made me think that they were very slightly dehydrated as to intensify the carrot’s sweeter element.

I think the sauce was a little bit too strong and overpowering, but that was obviously easily solved by just using less of it when I dipped the carrots into it.

To conclude the meal, the fifth course, serving as the dessert, was named “seaside treat, lime and sweet.” It consisted of their key lime beach, made from key lime mousse, graham cracker crumble, and lime air.

It’s as if this dessert was custom-modified to fit my personal preferences. I like key lime pie, but funny enough, my favorite part of it is the crust. This key lime beach, as you can tell by the name, had a far more generous portion of the graham cracker crust (in crumbled form) than what you’d find in a regular slice of key lime pie.

The fact that it had the lime foam was also fun. When eaten alone, it was very light and mild; when combined with bites of the key lime mousse and graham cracker crumble, it was unnoticeable. Regardless, it obviously made the presentation much better, and it made sure the tasting menu ended on a positive, artistic note.

Here are some photos of the interior of the restaurant.

It’s empty because I booked my reservation for 5 PM when they first opened, and I took the pictures while I was waiting for my first course to arrive. My meal took right around two hours, and as I progressed through the tasting menu, it got fairly busy to the point where it felt pretty packed by the time I finished my dessert.

For full transparency’s sake, I also got an additional 10% discount on my meal. However, that discount had nothing to do with this restaurant in particular, the discount has a set of external requirements in order to qualify for it that are unrelated to me as an individual, and there was no favoritism or subjectivity surrounding the discount. I did not receive a special invitation to this restaurant, and the staff did not know I was coming beyond a reservation I put in through their public booking portal a few hours before I showed up.

With that discount, which was separate from the complimentary beverage I received for being a local, my subtotal came to US$173.70. Sales tax at 8.375% came to US$14.55. I added a gratuity of US$60.00, which brought the grand total for the meal to US$248.25. For the record, I am still fairly staunchly against tipping culture and generally only tip around 15%, but I felt the almost 35% tip this time around was well deserved due to the fact that I seemed to not only have gotten far more food than I was supposed to, but also got it at a great price.

It’s probably needless to say at this point based on my detailed descriptions of how much I liked the food and why, but I highly recommend Bazaar Mar. This restaurant is probably a seafood enthusiast’s dream come true with the variety of different kinds of seafood they serve, and the innovative and unique nature in which they prepare the dishes. I would consider my meal an oceanic success, and I’m looking forward to going back to try José’s Creative Experience in the future.

Since then, several months have gone by. I had been keeping an eye on Gymkhana’s reservation availability, but very often, they were fully booked out around 45 days in advance. Because of my erratic travel schedule, I generally don’t put in reservations too far in advance, so I ultimately just decided on waiting until the hype settles down before I go to Gymkhana myself.

Throughout this waiting process, I noticed something intriguing. On Google Maps, Gymkhana’s listing settled at around the mid-3 stars in rating and did not really show any signs of climbing up into the 4s. This made me even more interested in dining there, because Gymkhana has an award-winning location in London, and I figured that at least some of that food and culinary skill would carry over to Las Vegas. I wanted to find out for myself whether the poor ratings were justified, or if people were just getting upset about certain things and then being extra harsh in their reviews.

Last night, I had some friends in town whom I decided to join for dinner. They had a few options for restaurants already in mind, and they ended up picking an Indian spot in Town Square. They mentioned that they had a prior obligation scheduled for the evening, so they would have to book the dinner late at night. Well, it happens to be that Gymkhana is also an Indian restaurant; it’s only about 4 miles further north; and lately, if you don’t want to book too far in advance, the only available time slots are around 8:30 PM and after. I checked seating availability for the same night, and 9 PM happened to be open. I proposed changing our dinner venue to Gymkhana instead due to its circumstantial similarities with their other choice; my friends happily agreed.

We dined as a party of three. Apparently, according to the reservation platform, that counts as a “large party,” which unlocks a special tasting menu called “The Vault.” When I go to tasting menus, I usually go either alone or with only one other person; thus, I realized that this may be a rare instance where I will be able to try Gymkhana’s “The Vault” menu that I otherwise would not be able to try in my routine dining system, so I locked that in during booking. This cost US$195.00 per person.

Before I start, I want to point out that the lighting in the restaurant was nice to set a certain mood, but horrific for photography. Gymkhana was probably one of the darkest restaurants I’ve ever been to. We were seated very deep in the restaurant where there were no windows, neither to the outdoors nor to the resort. There were some chandeliers hanging above some tables, but the table at which we were seated had little lighting. The only reason we could see was because there were small lamps on the table, but they were aggressively orange. When preparing my photographs for upload, I made a frail attempt at white balancing the color temperature before realizing how futile my efforts were and just posting them as-is.

The tasting menu started with two appetizers. The first was a pappadum selection. There were four different kinds of pappadums: lentil, chickpea, potato, and rice. This was served alongside three accompaniments: coriander and mint chutney, sweet lime pickle yogurt, and Goan prawn chutney.

I enjoyed the pappadums, and it felt like this was a more premium substitution for a bread basket that would be served by other restaurants. Because I’m not familiar with the ingredients (which will end up becoming a recurring theme throughout this entire meal), I couldn’t tell which accompaniment was which. Visually, my favorite was the reddish one that had a chunkier consistency, and then the creamier one that looked like spicy mayo (but definitely did not have the taste of spicy mayo). The runnier green sauce was good too, but I liked the other two more because the other two seemed like they had more depth to their flavor.

The second appetizer, which was served at the same time as the first, was a set of gol guppas. This came out as fried wheat puffs with a side of potatoes and moong lentil sprouts. Some of it was served as a pastier sauce consistency, while some of it was served in a miniature cup-pitcher hybrid with mint and cumin water underneath.

The waiter advised us to poke a little hole in the top-center surface of the wheat puffs, which were hollow inside. We would then scoop and pour in the potatoes, lentil sprouts, and mint and cumin water. I think I didn’t make the hole large enough because it was tricky to get everything inside the wheat puff, but once I got as much as I could in there, I ate it all in one bite and it was very flavorful.

According to the course list, the next dish was supposed to be aloo chaat with crispy fingerling potatoes, sweet yogurt, tamarind chutney, and gram flour vermicelli. However, this next plate is what we received instead. Because I don’t know much about Indian food, I’m not sure if this is just a modified version of aloo chaat, but visually, this is significantly different from what I see when I search up pictures of aloo chaat.

Regardless, this was delicious. We still had pappadums left from the first appetizer course, so I broke them up into smaller pieces and then used them to grab heaping scoops of this. If this is hypothetically also considered an accompaniment along with the other three that were provided with the pappadums, then this would’ve overwhelmingly been my favorite.

For my beverage, I ordered salted lemon nimbu pani, which the menu described as a take on Indian fresh lemonade with salted lemon and spiced salt. This was supplemental to the tasting menu and cost an extra US$15.00.

It’s not very obvious from the photograph, but there is a gigantic block of ice stretching vertically from the bottom to the top of the glass, and the slice of lime at the top of the drink is sitting atop the block of ice. The actual volume of beverage I got for this was very small, and it did not come with refills. It was good lemonade, and the spiced salt did add a unique facet to it that is otherwise not found in regular lemonade, but it was absolutely not worth it for the price.

The next dish was amritsari shrimp and scallops with red chili and carom seed batter, with a side of dill raita.

This was an overwhelming explosion of flavor. This had an underlying taste of being heavily fried, but because there was so much flavor to it, it didn’t have that oily, greasy taste or sensation that you get from eating regular deep-fried foods. The spices had a bit of a kick to them, so after finishing my portion of this, my nose started running a bit. Adding a generous portion of dill raita to each bite helped counteract and smooth out the spiciness.

The shrimp was great, and even though the batter and spices were very intense and piercing in flavor, I thought it went along well with the shrimp. However, using this preparation method for scallop felt a bit suboptimal. Maybe this is because I don’t eat much Indian food so I am highly sensitive to the pungency of the spices, but the flavor of the scallop seemed to just be completely drowned out by the other flavors. (For those who are not aware, scallops have a relatively milder flavor, so it’s usually served with minimal garnishes.)

Afterwards, we each received one tandoori masala lamb chop with red chili, ginger, fenugreek, garam masala, and walnut chutney. (Yes, there were originally three, but one person was very eager and expeditiously grabbed a lamb chop before I had an opportunity to snap a photograph.)

Just like the amritsari shrimp and scallops, these lamb chops were also an overwhelming explosion of flavor. This not only had a high intensity of flavor, but it also had a high variety of flavor in each bite.

I am generally not a particularly expressive person if I’m just doing regular day-to-day things and not fulfilling a role in entertainment or performing arts. I have been told that I am especially inexpressive around men, but even around my regular female friends, it has been a running joke about how it’s a funny puzzle to try and guess whether or not I like something I’ve just eaten, because I am usually in deep thought and analysis about the food in my mouth, and that often results in me having a serious face.

This lamb chop inadvertently induced an expression on my face. My reaction to this was so intense that apparently my body had to spew it out somewhere. I looked up and declared “there is so much happening in this lamb chop that I have no idea what’s going on.” I could tell that it was a great-quality lamb chop, but the seasonings and flavors covering the lamb chop were so over-the-top that it was hard to get a handle on it. It felt like my entire mouth was used as a stewing pot for the entire spice cabinet.

With that being said, it wasn’t bad. Usually, if you are ambushed with a ton of different flavors all at once, there is some degree of dissonance among the flavors. I imagine that if this kind of situation happened in any other context, I’d be taken aback and likely wince at the taste. However, this lamb chop wasn’t bad at all. It’s been a day since I had this, but thinking back on it, I am still confused about it right now. I still don’t know where to even start in terms of figuring out what it was seasoned with, let alone whether or not I genuinely enjoyed it. If I was committed to figuring that out, I reckon that I’d need to eat at least a few more of these on multiple more occasions so my taste buds can get more accustomed to it first.

After we finished the lamb chops, it was time for the main courses. One of them was Goan lobster curry with coconut milk, coriander, and red chili. This was served alongside black lentil dal maharani, saag makai, a bread basket, and some basmati rice.

The curry was good, but I’m not sure if I am particularly impressed by the lobster. The best way for me to describe this is that the curry was sort of off doing its own thing, and the lobster came along for the ride as an afterthought. Seafood is my favorite type of food and I very much like lobster (not because it’s expensive, but because I actually like the flavor of it), so I am far more alert to the nuances of the quality and preparation of lobster. The lobster in this curry acted not as the headliner of the dish, but as a supplemental addition to the curry itself.

The naan was incredible. There was a bunch of different kinds of naan, and all of it tasted amazing. I wasn’t able to have as much of it as I wanted because my friends also really liked the naan and ate a lot of it. The waiter offered to bring us more naan, but unfortunately, because of how late we got to the restaurant, the kitchen was already wrapped up by that point and had already discarded the charcoal they use to cook the naan, so we weren’t able to get a refill.

The second main course was supposed to be beef short rib pepper stir-fry with South Indian spices, coconut, and flaky Malabar paratha. However, the waiter let us know that there was an alternative for this dish that he would recommend instead: their venison biryani with braised venison, saffron pilaf rice, and pomegranate and mint raita.

When there is a pre-determined course list for a tasting menu, I usually like to stick to the menu, not only because I trust the chef who designed it with the flow and progression of flavor profiles in mind, but also because, when I share my experience on my blog, I want it to be replicable by other people (i.e., by going to the same restaurant and ordering the same tasting menu, if it is still in season). However, the waiter made it sound like it was a very appealing substitution, and my friends were on board with it, so I agreed to get the venison biryani instead of the beef short rib pepper fry.

The biryani came uncut, and its preparation was finished tableside. The server used a knife to cut off the top, then mixed the rice, venison, and spices together until it was ready to eat.

I think they made it wrong.

I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous coming from someone who knows nothing about Indian food, but the taste was noticeably off. Unfortunately, I know that I know nothing about Indian food, so rather than bring it up with the waiter, I instead second-guessed myself and just assumed that this was another one of those new, wild, crazy, intense flavors, just like I had already experienced many times earlier that dinner.

This entire dish tasted ashy. For lack of a better way to put it, this tasted like someone had crushed up a bunch of nearly-spent wood embers into powder, soaked it into water, strained the water so all the solids were left behind, and then used that water to cook the rice. To be clear, it didn’t directly taste burnt; it just tasted like ash. I prodded at the rice and mixed it around some more to see if I was able to find any excessively charred or discolored portions, but it looked pretty normal. There was no particular single component or element of the biryani that tasted ashy; the ashiness was such a core part of this dish’s identity that it was almost as if the intended flavor profile was to be ashy.

The reason why I suspect that this was prepared incorrectly is because, contrary to the intense flavors of the shrimp and lamb chop, the biryani actually induced an unpleasant sensation. More specifically, the flavor of the lamb chop was so intense that it was overwhelming, but there was something about it that made me not want to stop eating it. On the contrary, the ashiness of the biryani was also overwhelming, but it overwhelmed me to a point of not wanting to have more.

The tasting menu came with enough food that we had a lot of the main course left after we were all full, so we requested for the leftovers to be packaged into takeout boxes. I ended up keeping a majority of the leftovers, which was good, because I wanted to investigate this biryani further. The next afternoon (i.e., earlier today), I heated up the saffron pilaf rice and venison in the microwave to try some more and see if my taste buds would be more receptive to it. Unfortunately, the ashy taste persisted. The venison was palatable so I ended up finishing most of that as a good source of protein, but I threw out the rest of the rice.

For our first dessert, we were served rasgulla tiramisu made from soft cheese dumplings soaked in coffee and marsala, along with mascarpone cheese, pistachios, and rose petals.

This might be some of the best tiramisu I’ve ever had. It was noticeably different than other regular tiramisu I’ve had; it was greatly enhanced with extra earthy and floral flavors from the pistachios and rose petals.

Our other dessert was gold leaf gulab jamun, which were fried milk dumplings served with almonds and pistachios inside rose syrup and basundi milk.

The dumplings were pretty good, but the sauce was incredible. I made sure to re-dip the dumpling in the sauce continuously after each bite to get as much of it as possible. My friends just grabbed their dumplings without indulging much in the sauce, so I took advantage of the lack of utensil cross-contamination and finished all the remaining sauce myself as if it was soup.

Upon the conclusion of our meal, we were brought out some petits fours: candied fennel chocolate truffles, and passionfruit and chili jelly. The waiter let us know that those particular nuts and seeds on the chocolate were selected because they are known to help with digestion.

Because we had a very late reservation slot, most of the dining room was already empty by the time we were done. Thus, I managed to get a few shots of the interior before we wrapped up and headed out.

This is the bar area between the front and rear dining sections.

This is the front dining section, closest to the entrance. Because they were closing and cleaning, they turned the chandeliers on at maximum brightness, so I was able to actually see what the dining area was like.

This is another bar that was right across from the front dining area. Again, this is well-illuminated due to the chandeliers being boosted to seemingly maximum brightness for utility purposes during closing, but usually, this area is extremely dim.

Overall, I am tentatively satisfied with my experience at Gymkhana. Obviously, the ashy venison biryani is an issue, especially considering that it was talked up as a great substitution for the main course in The Vault menu, and even on their regular à la carte menu, it is prominently highlighted as one of their flagship entrées. However, I am still not confident enough in my understanding of Indian cuisine to make a certain statement about it.

The service was excellent. Our waiter was very attentive, he responded to all our questions in a thorough and knowledgeable way, and he demonstrated great care for our enjoyment and satisfaction. Beyond our waiter, we also encountered a few other staff members throughout our dinner, all of whom carried out their roles in a polished and efficient way, while still relaying warmth and kindness.

As I mentioned before, I opted for The Vault menu because it was an opportunity to experience a tasting menu that I might not otherwise be able to in the future. After assessing this experience, I do want to return to get the regular tasting menu for US$165.00 per person, though I may wait a season or two to see if they rotate some of the dishes, as I noticed that there is some overlap with the appetizers between the regular tasting menu and The Vault tasting menu.

As for whether or not I recommend this restaurant to other people… I’ll let you know next time, after I learn more about Indian cuisine.

As you can probably tell by the name, BlizzCon is a convention dedicated to Blizzard and their various games. It was held almost annually between 2005 and 2019, only excluding 2006 and 2012. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and marked the start of the BlizzCon cadence being thrown off quite a bit. The pandemic “postponed” the 2020 convention to the subsequent year, and then forced the 2021 one to be online-only. To make things worse, the 2022 convention was canceled entirely; although they did not cite it directly, people reasonably assume that it was due to their ongoing major lawsuit at the time, California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard, Inc., No. 21STCV26571 (California Superior Court, Los Angeles County; July 20, 2021). BlizzCon came back for 2023, which I attended. They took 2024 and 2025 off, then returned this past weekend for the 16th BlizzCon.

Between 2015 and 2019 when my company Tempo still had its Tempo Storm esports division and we were still competing in the esports leagues of a number of Blizzard titles, I was regularly invited to BlizzCon as either esports support staff or as a member of the press. In fact, even though it originated during my time in League of Legends, it was actually Blizzard esports that popularized calling me Adam “Adam Parkzer” Parkzer, and then subsequently, Adam “Don’t call me ‘Adam "Adam Parkzer" Parkzer’” Parkzer. (If you don’t get it, it is a joke on the FirstName “Gamertag” LastName naming convention; due to me just using my full name everywhere, they filled in my full name as my “gamertag,” and then when I told people to stop doing that… well, you can see how that went.)

Being invited to things is nice, but can also be burdensome. If you’re at a convention for work, i.e., to make sure your professional players are taken care of, or to cover the announcements and make content about it, then those duties are always at the front of your mind. Even if you have no obligations at the convention, receiving a complimentary admission ticket by invitation has an implication that you have a “special” relationship with the company (at least, special enough that you get a free ticket) and that you have a soft expectation to portray the convention positively.

For example, if I had gotten a free ticket, I may have second-guessed myself when reminding everyone earlier that BlizzCon 2022 was canceled most likely due to the state government suing Blizzard for alleged sexual misconduct and discrimination against women. And if you know me, you know that I don’t like to pass up opportunities to inform people about bad things that have happened in the recent past so we can learn about them and avoid them happening again in the future.

For BlizzCon 2026, I did not reach out to any Blizzard contacts and I did not apply for media credential consideration; I purchased my normie ticket at full price out-of-pocket so I could enjoy the convention strictly as a tourist, and then say whatever I want about it on my blog afterwards.

 
With that somewhat rambly and borderline tangential introduction out of the way, here are some general impressions I had about BlizzCon.

First, it felt like the convention was wildly oversold. The reason I was looking forward to BlizzCon 2026 was because BlizzCon 2023 was actually quite peaceful and relaxed, and I expected it to be the same this year. BlizzCon in particular is appealing to me because a lot of Blizzard game fans are old adults now, so the general attendee-base is a lot more mature than what you’d see in other gaming conventions. The level of maturity seemed to have carried over to this year too, but the number of people there was frankly insane.

The worst way that this manifested was the lines. If BlizzCon 2026 had a nickname, it would be Wait In Line Simulator. Doing literally anything involved standing in a line that ranged in length from “very long” to “famishing.” I believe the line to get into Darkmoon Faire was over 5,000 people long when I checked (and that is a genuine underestimate, not an exaggeration). That particular line spanned up the escalators in Hall A and across the entire walkway to the far end of the North Hall, zig-zagging and snaking back and forth, folding in on itself multiple times over.

Another place this was visible was the main stage. There was a substantial amount of seating, but there were so many attendees that people were still packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder off to the side in the standing areas. I showed up to the opening ceremony a little bit late and could barely see what was going on because I was on the literal other end of the hall, right by the exit doors, as far away as you can possibly be from the stage.

As a side note, there was a bit of a problem with the seating. The chairs were quite medium. Now, medium chairs are usually fine, but the problem with stage seating was that the medium chairs were hooked together side to side so that the seats were touching to form a makeshift bench. The attendees at BlizzCon were just normal people who you’d expect to see at a convention in the United States, i.e., a good number of them either just had large statures, or were overweight. On the first day of the convention, I was in and out of the main stage viewing area because I was squeezing in looking at the exhibits between panels. Whenever I showed up and scanned the audience for seats, I’m fairly certain that at least 15% of them were always vacant because they were occupied by people’s shoulders or love handles.

Adjacent to the congestion, I thought BlizzCon was a little bit boring for me this year. Maybe it’s because I’m just so used to having a packed, back-to-back schedule of obligations and commitments in the past, but it felt like there was both nothing to do and too much to do at the same time.

One thing I appreciated about having special media access in the past is that there are dedicated computer stations for members of the press to try out the demos without needing to wait in long lines. I was not particularly enthused to stand in lines of hundreds of people to try the demos on the show floor, so I ended up not playing anything (otherwise, it felt like all I would be doing for the entire convention is standing in line).

I really enjoyed seeing all the exhibits, but after I spent a few hours slowly walking through everything, there wasn’t much else that was particularly engaging to me… except for one thing.

 
My favorite part of BlizzCon was seeing LE SSERAFIM perform live.

If you know me and know how uninterested I have always been about K-pop, then you might think that is an absolutely wild statement to come out of my mouth. But, I actually legitimately enjoy a good amount of their music. I also think the group was built well, and each member is quite likeable.

Their BlizzCon concert was better than I expected, and that’s even with my relatively high expectations from already knowing that they are great performers. They did 13 songs in 45 minutes, which is a very packed lineup. They maintained their high energy throughout, even with there being minimal talking time and a lot of back-to-back dancing and singing, which I obviously found quite impressive. I thought the setlist was built very well; it felt like the breadth of songs was selected to appeal to both casual fans who recognize viral hits, in addition to diehard fans looking for rare live renditions of less popular songs. Also of note were their outfits—compared to what they’ve worn in the past, it seemed like these were custom-catered to be particularly appealing to a Western audience.

If you thought me listening to LE SSERAFIM was wild, I’m about to say something even wilder: I showed up about four hours early for their show. To be clear, I didn’t just idly sit there staring at the ceiling and twiddling my thumbs. There was still stuff happening on the main stage during most of that period—I got to enjoy hearing about the upcoming release of Diablo V and watching the voice actors across the various Blizzard worlds sharing stories. However, I knew that the main stage would get packed for LE SSERAFIM’s performance, so I claimed a seat early to make sure I wasn’t stranded all the way in the back. I technically was early enough that I could’ve gotten a seat in the front-most section, but I figured I’d save those for their FEARNOTs (which is what they call their fanbase) who showed up with branded light sticks. (And I also wanted to avoid being constantly on screen for their live concert video.)

I didn’t record any of the performance because I knew that there was professional filming being done (and I’m just not the type to be holding up a camera the entire time at a concert anyway), but I did take some still shots—a few during their introductions, and a few when they walked forward onto the B-stage and were closer to the audience.

And before you K-pop fanatics ask: no, I do not have a bias. I respect and admire all five of them equally, each for their own individual reasons.

…

If you put a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me if I didn’t pick one, then my bias is Chaewon. And my bias wrecker is Eunchae.

Remember how I mentioned that I showed up a bit late to the opening ceremony and could barely even find space in the standing area? Well, this was my view.

Do you see where it seems like there are people standing on the stage? Well, look carefully. Those are actually the static camerapeople who are set up halfway down the seated area. The actual stage is double that distance away.

This is what the Overwatch area looked like. I don’t play Overwatch (or pretty much any first-person perspective games) because it gives me motion sickness, so I didn’t really know any of the characters or understand any of the references, but apparently the reason LE SSERAFIM was even at BlizzCon at all was because they did a collaboration with Overwatch.

In the far outskirts of the hall, there were sections set up for some of Blizzard’s more “neglected” games, like Heroes of the Storm. Tempo Storm used to have a professional Heroes of the Storm team, so I used to play it a lot, but then they added loot boxes and abruptly terminated the league, so I haven’t even opened the game at all for several years now.

They set up a nostalgic Heroes of the Storm showmatch and invited back a bunch of previous professional players, which I thought was nice. League of Legends did a similar showmatch a couple of months ago, and although I wasn’t there to watch it live, I still enjoyed watching the VOD. With that being said, I did not watch the Heroes of the Storm one due to the lingering sourness I have with the way they ended the esports league.

They also had some classic game stations scattered throughout the exhibition halls. There was a demo for some new Warcraft III content, as well as a row of memorabilia from the old days of Blizzard.

Blizzard also announced that StarCraft is coming back… as a shooter game. I literally thought this was a prank because it said it was releasing in 2030, and it sounded ridiculous that, not only would they turn a real-time strategy game into a shooter, but then claim that it is releasing so far into the future.

I grew up playing StarCraft. StarCraft: Brood War was one of my favorite games as a kid, and I distinctly remember the excitement when StarCraft II came out right after I graduated high school. Sixteen years later, I still occasionally boot up and play a game or two of StarCraft II.

Needless to say, I am quite disappointed about the StarCraft news. I thought Blizzard had found a new, innovative, unique way to make RTS games appealing again and make them profitable enough to make it worth investing into and reviving the esports scene again. It never occurred to me that it would end up becoming… a shooter. Furthermore, I don’t know if this is just thinking too deeply into it and drawing conclusions that weren’t intended, but if they are implying the conversion of the StarCraft world into a shooter game, then I guess this could be seen as soft confirmation that StarCraft III as an RTS is probably never coming.

Ever since I stopped overseeing the Tempo Storm Meta Snapshot®, I stopped playing Hearthstone entirely. I think Hearthstone for me is one of the best examples of a fun hobby no longer being fun after turning it into a job. Because of the high-pressure nature of publishing the Meta Snapshot® to our gigantic expectant fan base (we had several million visitors per month at our peak), on top of the high staff turnover due to the difficulty of finding reliable Hearthstone expert contributors, it was definitely one of the more draining projects I did at Tempo Storm.

With that being said, right before I reached a point of complete exhaustion and burn-out, I was able to hand over the project to a different staff member at Tempo Storm. I think that was critical, because if I had gone any longer, I probably would’ve hated Hearthstone for the rest of my life. However, even though I still don’t play Hearthstone and would probably never play it again due to how unsustainable it feels to need to continuously dump money into new card sets, I think I left Hearthstone on a positive note. Walking through the Hearthstone exhibits at BlizzCon invoked a pleasant sense of nostalgia and brought back some good memories.

One of the most surprising things for me at BlizzCon was how big the Diablo section was. In retrospect, it makes sense, because there are a lot of different versions of Diablo, one of which is literally a mobile game that can grind revenue for Blizzard in the traditional high-profit mobile game microtransaction model. Also, out of all of Blizzard’s games, it feels like Diablo might be the world that is most likely to appeal to a general non-hardcore audience due to its relatively low barrier of entry and retention.

I wouldn’t call myself the biggest Diablo fanatic, but I enjoyed playing Diablo III and I’ve made decent progress through the Diablo IV storyline. Funny enough, the Diablo section of the convention was actually my favorite out of all the Blizzard universes. It felt the most immersive, and it seemed like the people who worked on the Diablo section paid extra special attention to refining all the small details.

Out of all the Blizzard games, World of Warcraft is the one that I play the most nowadays. I’m nowhere near as dedicated to it as I was at one point in my life, but in general, MMORPGs are my favorite genre of video game, so I usually end up going back to World of Warcraft as part of my video game rotation. I don’t like the constant grind though and don’t enjoy the feeling of gear getting outdated so quickly, so I usually end up just completing the main storyline quests, clearing through the raids once using instance finder, and then coming back for the next patch.

Going more in-depth about the gear getting outdated: I don’t have a lot of time to play video games anymore, so I can’t do the constant grind of dungeons and raids every week after the reset. It is annoying to me when I finally do enough raids and battlegrounds to be able to buy good gear, and then a few months later, all my progress becomes pointless and I have to repeat the process all over again. This is why I have enjoyed Guild Wars 2—its horizontal progression means that I can play as much or as little as I want, and it will never feel like the past time I put into the game becomes useless.

With this idea in mind, I am particularly looking forward to the release of World of Warcraft: Forever, announced at this BlizzCon. It seems like WoW: Forever is intended to be closer to a horizontal-progression game, as opposed to the heavy vertical progression that the regular World of Warcraft has. I do not intend on playtesting WoW: Forever during the beta period as a volunteer quality assurance tester, but I do plan on playing it in early November when it formally releases to the public.

Because I was at the main stage so early, I saw the full programming leading up to the LE SSERAFIM concert, including the closing ceremony. They gave away some free merchandise by using air cannons and throwing bundles of apparel into the crowd.

I feel like I already covered all my thoughts at the beginning of the blog post, but I guess I did leave out one obvious question, of whether I would go again in the future. At this point, I’m actually not sure. I know this sounds wishy-washy and hypocritical to what I literally just already said in this blog post, but funny enough, I might be more inclined to go again in the future if I receive an invitation and special access to restricted areas so that I can actually try things out without feeling like I have to stand in paralyzingly long lines.

… Or if LE SSERAFIM performs again next year. I’d pay full price and go back for that.

This is an attraction on the Las Vegas Strip that I always recommend checking out because it’s free and low-commitment, so when my friends come to visit Las Vegas and we are in the general area of the central Strip, I always encourage them to stop by. Because of that, I’d seen this installation in-person a handful of times already, but I didn’t have my point-and-shoot camera with me during any of those previous trips. I didn’t want to miss my streak of sharing pictures of the seasonal installations on my blog though, so earlier today, I walked over to the Bellagio for one final look at all the animals.

The Conservatory is scheduled to enter its dark days starting from this coming Sunday, so you only have about half a week left to see this in person.

Hello, toe beans.

Here is a bonus floral arrangement set up in front of Harvest, a restaurant deeper into the resort near the pool area.

If you liked these photographs and want to see more from previous installations, I also have these past blog posts (in reverse chronological order): “Springtime Symphony: Music In Motion,” “Lunar New Year 2026: Year of the Horse,” “All Aboard for Holiday Bells and Whistles,” “Glam Menagerie: Surrealist Summer,” “The Birds and the B’s,” and “Lunar New Year 2025: Year of the Snake.”

As you can probably tell from his name, YakitoriGuy specializes in yakitori. Yakitori, or 焼き鳥, translates to “grilled bird”; practically, it is small portions of chicken threaded onto skewers and grilled over charcoal. He sources Jidori chicken for his dinners, which he appropriately names “The YakitoriGuy Experience,” and he builds a “course list” (which, in his case, would be a “skewer list”) using as much of the chicken as possible, even including portions that people who aren’t particularly chicken enthusiasts would not even know existed.

For those who know me for my restaurant recaps and my (sometimes unconventional and unusual) reviews and analyses on different tasting menus and omakase experiences I go to, I want to clarify that this blog post does not count as one of those. Not only is this just not a regular restaurant where you can show up and order off a menu, but even if I tried or wanted to do a detailed breakdown, I don’t remember enough specifics about what part of the chicken each skewer was made from to be able to provide much value in my commentary beyond “it tasted good.”

Overall, the dinner was fantastic, both food-wise and experience-wise. I learned a good amount about yakitori, and YakitoriGuy was very interactive with all of us throughout the dinner, which is what you’d expect from a quality experiential dinner like this. I think the skewers with only chicken were decent, but I really enjoyed the skewers that had both chicken and vegetables. In my personal opinion and for my own culinary preferences, I think chicken on its own has a lower ceiling of deliciousness than other kinds of meat. However, if you’re building combination skewers with chicken and other complementary items, I think that’s where the food really shines. Thus, although I still liked the chicken with simple sauces and garnishes, the ones you’ll see grilled together with large cuts of vegetables were my favorites.

As a side note, YakitoriGuy does serve members of the public sometimes, but he does it in an exclusive and limited pop-up structure, and the dinner I was able to enjoy was a fully private group hand-picked and curated by my friend. If you’re interested in potentially attending one of his pop-ups, he mentioned that the best way to do that would be to check out his website (linked above), register for his newsletter, and follow him on social media for his latest updates.

With that all being said, consider this to be a casual photo diary of my dinner:

I heard that getting a ticket to D23 is a difficult process, so I feel very fortunate that I was an invited guest. Prospective ticket purchasers apparently need a certain kind of premium membership with Disney’s fan club, and then from there, they need to line up in a virtual queue and hope for the chance to buy a pass before they all sell out. With that being said, I really respect and appreciate how Disney runs their ticketing system. Scalpers and ticket resellers have become a major problem with basically anything limited nowadays, so I think the fact that Disney filters out ticket buyers to only be genuine fans of their brands is a good move.

I’ve been to a lot of conventions before, but D23 still stood out to me. The first thing I noticed about it is how nice everything was. The build quality of everything was far more premium than what I’ve seen at other conventions, and I found it surprising that even just the regular aisles and walkways were covered with plush carpeting. In conventions where they have to sell exhibition space to third parties, it is obviously not possible to maintain this level of quality and consistency among all the booths—different exhibitors are going to have different budget availability, and some brands will have to cheap out on materials in order to be able to afford being there. However, the fact that Disney is handling the entirety of the convention floor by themselves made it so that they had an incentive to uphold their reputation and make everything nice.

Another first impression that I got was how there were little to no children at the convention. It was very easy to tell that this was designed to be a convention for adults, and the only children I saw were infants in strollers who I assume had to come along because their parents either couldn’t or didn’t want to find a babysitter. This made the environment far less chaotic, and I felt like I was at an actual civilized gathering instead of a circus. For comparison, this was the polar opposite of VidCon where a majority of attendees were children, an unfortunate many of which were quite obnoxious. On the other hand, D23 reminded me more of the most recent BlizzCon; most classic Blizzard game fans have grown up to be adults now, so the last time I attended BlizzCon, it felt like I was there enjoying my time with fellow adults reminiscing and being nostalgic about their childhood.

As I spent more time at the convention, I began realizing just how big the Disney brand is. I kept on seeing logos and characters that I either knew or recognized, but I previously had no idea that they were at all affiliated with or owned by Disney. It seemed like any other brands that were present that were not owned by Disney were there due to corporate partnerships or other business-based alliances in connection with Disney’s products.

My friends who I went with have recently developed an interest in collectible cards, so they were particularly excited for the opportunity to buy sets and merchandise from Lorcana, Disney’s trading card game. There was a wide open space for people to play Lorcana together with other convention-goers, as well as a store run by Ravensburger selling physical Lorcana products.

There was obviously limited stock of Lorcana card sets, and many people at the convention wanted to buy one, so D23 had a virtual queue system on their mobile app where you “line up” online rather than in-person, and then you show up when it’s your turn to shop. The ability to join the queue opened up at certain designated times, so you had to sync your clock to coordinated universal time down to the second, and then right as the release hit, you had to press a button to request to be added to the queue.

Everyone in my group pulled out their phones to prepare to join the queue. Even though I personally wasn’t interested in making a purchase, I figured I would still participate, because it’s better to have more reservations and then withdraw extras later, as opposed to not having enough. So, I also opened my D23 app, made sure the time on my Garmin watch was synced, and then counted down the seconds. The exact moment it hit 1 PM, I pressed the button to join the queue and got inside batch 50. They were currently servicing people in the early batch 40s, presumably still people who were being taken care of from the previous queue, so I realized that I ended up with a really good spot.

Then I checked in with my friends. I don’t know if I just had a more responsive phone because I uninstall all bloatware and barely use any apps, or if it’s because I keep 5G disabled on a routine basis so there is a chance that I had better ping with my 4G LTE service (because keep in mind that 5G is usually faster, but 4G is usually more stable), or if I’m just godlike at counting seconds. But, the next best person in our group got put into batch 99, and everyone else landed above batch 100 (with the highest being in the 140s) and got waitlisted.

Each reservation permitted the reservation holder and one guest to stand in the physical line and make a purchase, so I brought my friend along so she could buy two of everything she wanted—one from my reservation holder allocation and one from her guest allocation.

One thing I extra liked about the Lorcana activation was how there was a deckbuilding quest where you had to interact with other people to trade cards and build a set of four that you got assigned at the Ravensburger store, and once you completed your mission and brought it back to the turn-in spot, you would receive a bonus card. With the decline of social third places nowadays, I almost always support opportunities where strangers can come together in-person and build interest-based connections with each other through a medium that is not online.

Adjacent to that, my friends also had an interest in checking out the Magic: The Gathering booth to see if there were any exclusive items for sale. The MTG booth made queueing more fun by having a quiz that people could take on their phones while waiting in line. Those who took the quiz would be able to show their results to someone at the entrance of the booth and receive a free deck of cards. I took the quiz and got Black, though I don’t actually play MTG, so I’m not sure what that means. I gave my deck to my friend.

One of the most memorable commercial activations I’ve seen at a convention was this Heinz one. Heinz and Disney apparently entered into a multi-year strategic partnership, and in celebration, Heinz set up a place where you could try out their sauces.

One section was sort of like a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine where you could pick your base flavor and add-ons to build your own sauce. Conveniently, they had a concession stand nearby where you could buy hot dogs so you could try these sauces out on a hot dog. Another section showed their four new pre-packaged sauces: orange mojo, blackberry bourbon barbeque, maple sweet chili, and brauhaus mustard.

When it was my turn to try the Heinz Remix machine, I went with a honey mustard and mayonnaise base with an add-in of a double portion of roasted garlic. I think the machine ended up adding in too much mayo, and I wish there had been an option to go easy on the bases as well, but overall, I was satisfied with my creation.

On the opposite side of the Remix machine, there was a cart where an attendant gave out a four-pack of the new sauces. They were in small portions, the size and look of which reminded me of McDonald’s dipping sauces. This was a separate line that required an additional wait, but I somehow accidentally entered that area through the exit after being confused as to where I needed to path after I retrieved my cup of Remix sauce. I guess the attendant was just as confused as I was, because she noticed that I had randomly spawned in and just randomly handed me a sauce set. I gave it to another one of my friends (the one who you see in the photograph pondering about her Remix sauce) because she exited through the proper area and didn’t inadvertently cheat the system like I did, so she ended up not getting one.

One of the activities we did was… voluntarily watching advertisements. This sounds ridiculous, but it was actually quite enjoyable. The line was pretty long, and if you know me, you know that I’m the type of person who doesn’t like standing in lines or otherwise facing any kind of friction between myself and doing what I want to do. However, this line wasn’t too bad because I was chatting with the group of people with whom I had gone to the convention.

The premise behind this was that you would put on 3D glasses, go into a theater where there are immersive elements (like seat vibrations and mist to go along with what’s on-screen), and then watch short clips of various different Disney and Hulu shows so you could get a crash course on what’s available on their programming network. I was lucky enough to literally get the best seat in the house, i.e., in the front row and directly in the center of the screen. The immersive elements were fun, and it was overall pretty enjoyable.

They didn’t allow us to take photographs inside the theater, so instead, here is a picture of us in the waiting room while the hostess chatted with us and briefed us about what was to come.

While we were walking around the exhibition halls, a bunch of employees suddenly cleared the walkway and told everyone to retreat to the edges of the path. Then, out of nowhere, a marching band came through. It was quite jarring, but pretty funny.

Here is a picture of my friend feeling up a statue of Rotta the Hutt. She is probably thinking “why can’t my boyfriend also have a 12-pack…”

(Her face is censored because she doesn’t like having her face posted online.)

Apart from that, I spent the rest of the convention walking around, sightseeing, and taking pictures of things that I found interesting. I feel lucky that I got to go, and I think the fact that I, a non-Disney fan, attended and had such a positive experience is a great indicator on how well the convention is put together.

(As a side note, apparently D23 takes place in two venues: the Anaheim Convention Center, and the multi-purpose arena Honda Center. We only got to experience what was in the convention center and did not get a chance to see the shows at the Honda Center.)

In no particular order, here are a bunch more photographs from my visit:

Out of the tasting menus, they had one called “Welcome to the Fabulous Butcher’s Feast,” also written in Korean on the menu as “모둠 고기한상,” for US$88.88 per person. The English name is obviously a play on the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” catchphrase, while the Korean name roughly translates to “assorted meat feast.” The other tasting menu was simply called “Steak Omakase™: The Grand Tour” for US$225.00 per person. The Steak Omakase is what my friend and I ended up getting.

Of course, when someone puts a trademark symbol beside a name, I always get curious enough to do some snooping, partially to see if they actually did trademark it, and partially to see if there is an interesting story behind it. I guess this is also one of the quirks of reading restaurant reviews on my website, because I imagine that not too many other food bloggers have enough of a background and an intrinsic interest in legal matters to go off on a trademark and intellectual property tangent in the middle of their review.

So anyway, during my search, I found that the first attempt to trademark Steak Omakase was made by Cote IP LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, back in January 2019. Unfortunately, it seems like they ran into some issues; they successfully responded to an office action in April 2019, but failed to overcome the subsequent office action in October 2019.

Rather than responding to the office action in October 2019, they instead abandoned the initial application and filed a new one under Gracious Hospitality Management LLC, a New York limited liability company with a foreign registration in Nevada, in November 2019. That application also received an office action in February 2020, and then again in August 2020, which caused the company to once again abandon the application.

Third time’s a charm, though, because in March 2024, Gracious Hospitality Management LLC made yet again another attempt to trademark Steak Omakase. They received an office action in September 2024, responded to it successfully in early December 2024, and finally received their registration certificate in late December 2024.

Thus, that confirms that this review is officially for COTE’s Steak Omakase®.

 
The omakase started with an ice-chilled oyster topped with some sea urchin. This was a very generous portion of sea urchin, but I felt like the explosion of flavor wasn’t quite as intense as what I expected for this size of sea urchin. Regardless, overall, it was still very delicious, and considering that sea urchin is my favorite food and I really like oysters, this was a very satisfying appetizer for the meal.

The friend with whom I went to this restaurant is the friend who doesn’t eat seafood, whom I’ve talked about previously on my blog. As a substitution for the oyster and sea urchin, the waiter instead brought out 바삭한 통 삼겹살구이, translated to English on the menu as “Korean ‘bacon,'” composed of house-smoked crispy heritage pork belly and pickled jalapeño.

We were also served a cup of broth. This was intensely and borderline overwhelmingly salty, but the broth had so much rich, deep, umami flavor in it that the salt did a great job enhancing and amplifying the deliciousness of the broth.

Next was some steak tartare with local grass-fed top-round beef, pear, and crispy tendon puffs. This was topped with a small portion of caviar, though I don’t remember exactly what kind of caviar it was.

This was amazing. I liked this combination, and this came with the “flavor explosion” that I expect from high-quality steak tartare and caviar. To make the beef flavor even stronger, this tartare came with crispy tendon puffs instead of bread. I’m impressed that they managed to shape the tendon puffs so neatly. This was perfectly complementary with the steak, and I wish more restaurants would serve tartare like this (though I imagine the reason they don’t is because this is far more resource-intensive than just serving bread).

When our waiter was told that my friend dislikes seafood but I love seafood, he took a caring step to ensure that the caviar went to me, and wasn’t just omitted from my friend’s tartare and “wasted.” My friend’s portion of caviar was separated into a small bowl on the side, so I was able to blissfully enjoy even more caviar to make sure we were getting our full money’s worth.

For my beverage, I ordered an Aplós Ume Spritz for US$15.00. I saw it on the non-alcoholic beverage menu and had never heard of it before, and it said that it came with an infusion of lion’s mane, which I thought sounded interesting, so I picked it. I was expecting some kind of fancy specialty drink from their bar. Unfortunately, when it came out, I realized that it was just a canned drink that I paid $15 for.

When I looked it up on their website after the fact, I found out that you can order this directly from Aplós for US$6.00 per can, or as low as ~$3.44 a can if you buy in bulk packs of 48 cans and enroll in their no-commitment subscription. It was actually pretty tasty and had a very interesting flavor profile, but it starts tasting less fantastic when you find out that, if you include the fact that you tip the waiter to carry this can to your table for you, the restaurant is taking over a 400% profit margin on the drink. (Yes, I understand that profit margins on fountain drinks are even higher, but at least for that, there is an up-front capital cost of the machinery, as well as ongoing maintenance and repairs.)

Not long after we finished both our appetizers, the waiter brought out the meat. There were six different kinds, and one piece of each for each person. The waiter explained that they were generally grouped into pairs—two wet-aged, two dry-aged, and two high-grade wagyu.

In traditional Korean fashion, we were also given a broad selection of side dishes. However, these were not the generic, stereotypical Korean side dishes. Instead, we were brought out a very unique selection of sides, some of which I have never seen at a Korean restaurant before. For example, the green sticks that you see next to the cauliflower are okra.

Another notable thing about the preparation of these side dishes is that a lot of them were pickled. I’m usually not a fan of pickled vegetables because I don’t like the taste of vinegar, I find pickled foods to be too sour for my preference, and I’d rather just eat vegetables raw. However, these pickled vegetables had all the positive flavors of the pickling process without there being any sourness. I ended up eating a substantial amount of these sides.

Unlike all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue restaurants where you cook the meat yourself, COTE’s waiters cook your meat for you at your table. This is a huge plus considering that these waiters most likely have far more skill and training at grilling meat than I do, so it’s a great way to maximize the flavor of each cut of meat while minimizing the possibility of it being overcooked or cooked with an unbalanced doneness level.

Here is a series of photographs of our waiter salting, preparing, grilling, and serving the first few cuts of meat.

While the meat was being cooked and served to us, we continued to get more side dishes throughout the meal. I liked that they did this because I enjoy breaking up the continuity of meat with additional flavors. I think eating beef non-stop, especially cuts that have high levels of fat and marbling, can get cloying; mixing in other flavor profiles makes it so your taste buds can “reset” a bit, which allows you to fully appreciate each bite of meat without their flavors just merging together.

Here is some 계란찜, which is Korean-style steamed egg.

Here are some more photographs of our waiter salting, grilling, and serving more cuts of meat. He threw in a mushroom with some of them, which I thought did a great job at adding an earthy element to the rich fattiness and making the overall flavor profile more complex and desirable.

As we were approaching some of our final pieces of meat, they brought out two noodle dishes.

The first one was 상큼한 비빔국수, described on the menu as cold and refreshing Korean angel hair noodles with apples, iceberg lettuce, and gochujang vinaigrette. I ate this cold noodle dish a lot as a kid, so eating this again was quite nostalgic. However, as you can imagine, COTE prepared these noodles far better than anything that my mom made me as a kid, so that added an additional layer of euphoria.

The second bowl of noodles was 뜨끈한 잔치국수, described on the menu as Korean angel hair noodles with piping hot clear anchovy consommé.

I thought this was so funny that I had to take a photograph of it. If you’re familiar with Korean cuisine, you may recognize this as roasted chili flakes. These are extremely spicy. I immediately knew what these were because I have had instances in the past where I put way too much of this in my food, had a mild emergency in my mouth, and started sweating enough that I could’ve been added to Google Maps as a fire hydrant.

I smartly only added a very small pinch of this to the warm noodle dish, which brought it up to my perfect preferred heat level. I found it absolutely hilarious that they served this much of it for such a tiny bowl of noodles. Surely, at least once in the history of the restaurant, someone thought “they must’ve given me this much because this is how much I’m supposed to use,” dumped this entire thing into their bowl of noodles, and then proceeded to think that they had to go to the hospital.

Here are some photographs of our final pieces of meat. These were the high-grade cuts of wagyu. The waiter was so far doing a fantastic job making sure that the flame wasn’t flaring up, but because of how rich and fatty these cuts were, it was inevitable that the fire started dancing under the grate.

After we were finished with our wooden platter of meat, the waiter brought out a bonus plate of pre-marinated meat. He called this the “dessert meat.” This cut of beef isn’t actually eaten as a dessert, but it made sense why he would call it that, because the marinade usually has a nice sweetness to it. This is different than the more straightforward cuts of meat that we just finished eating that rely primarily on the flavor of the aging, the high fat content, and the accompanying salt to carry their naturally amazing flavors.

For our actual dessert, we were served some ice cream with a soy sauce glaze. The soy sauce glaze tasted very similar to caramel, but it had a deeper and more complex flavor to it. I actually liked this a lot, and if this was served à la carte at an ice cream shop near me for a reasonable price, this is something that I would deem worth getting for dessert on a relatively routine basis.

To close out our meal, we received a bowl of fruit. The pink pineapple was absolutely incredible and might have been some of the best fruit I’ve ever had in my entire life.

This is a photograph of the bar area in the center of the restaurant.

In alignment with the flower theme pursuant to the 꽃 in the middle of the COTE wordmark, the ceiling had a floral design on it.

This is the wordmark on the glass at the front of the restaurant.

This is the hostess’ podium at the entrance of the restaurant.

These are some animated LED signs just outside the restaurant that showed various different items served at COTE.

The omakase and non-alcoholic beverage came to a subtotal of US$240. After sales tax and gratuity, the total for my portion of the meal came to US$300.

I had a fantastic dining experience at COTE, and I highly recommend it as one of the top-tier and higher-priority options for someone looking for a meal at that price point. The meat was very high quality, their special twist on Korean cuisine noticeably elevated the food, the service was attentive and skillful, and the environment was classy and pleasant.